The construction of the Maison des étudiants de la francophonie was included in the Cité internationale development project, Cité 2025, which would provide it with 10 new houses and 1800 additional rooms, in addition to the 6000 existing rooms, by 2025, a century after its creation.
It was announced to the Académie française by the President of the Republic, Mannuel Macron, on the 20th of March 2018, in his plan for the promotion of the French-speaking world.
Demathieu Bard real estate was chosen in April 2018 after a competitive dialogue that lasted more than a year and was led by the Cité internationale, with the support of external services such as the Bruno Fortier architecture agency, the Tohier technique studies office, the DS Avocats firm and Carole Héripret a real estate arrangement advisor. The developer entrusted the design of the Maison des étudiants de la francophonie to Baumschlager Eberle Architectes.
The Maison des étudiants de la francophonie is managed by the Fondation nationale Cité internationale universitaire de Paris.
The first stone was laid on the 20th March 2019 on International Francophone Day in the presence of: Frédérique Vidal, the minister of higher education, research and innovation, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, the secretary of state to the minister of Europe and foreign affairs, Adama Ouane, the administrator of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, Gille Pécout, chancellor of the academic region of Île-de-France, chancellor of the Académie de Paris, chancellor of the universities of Paris, Jean-Paul de Gaudemar, chancellor of the Agence universitaire de la Francophonie and Jean-Marc Sauvé, the presidents of the Fondation Cité internationale universitaire de Paris and honorary vice-president of the state council.
The main idea behind the project for the Maison des étudiants de la francophonie was to create a sculptural residence in motion. The residence, with its silhouette of “bow” at the far south-west of the campus is clearly identifiable. The building’s location and size are a part of the urban system of buildings situation along the ring road, such as the Fondation de Chine and the Pavillon Habib Bourguiba. Its urban location allows for spectacular views, of the dynamic landscape of the ring road on one side and of the park on the other.
The construction is a response to critiques of energy performance to limit its environmental impact. The building’s heating comes from a gas-powered boiler. The multipurpose room is heated by air heaters that heat the heat from a central air handling unit. The clean hot water is produced by an autonomous heating pipe that uses the houses’grey water. The ventilation is provided by a dual flow system and insulation (expanded polystyrene and glass-wool).
The residence has 300 rooms and communal spaces to prioritise collective living: a multipurpose room (140 m²), an e-learning library (100 m²), a reception space, a games room, work rooms, communal kitchens and a lounge-bar to meet up. The structure of the room is designed to be flexible: the studios can be transformed into one-bed apartments by taking down the partition.
The Maison des étudiants de la francophonie will reinforce academic and scientific cooperation with French-speaking countries. 150 studios will be reserved by the Agence universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF) according to a partnership that was signed with the Cité internationale universitaire de Paris. This partnership will allow the building to facilitate student mobility and French-speaking researchers. The French-speaking students from the AUF will, in effect, stay on campus and meet with students of diverse origins and cultures.
The Cité internationale and the AUF are gambling on highlighting the talents of French-speaking countries by opening their doors to the best higher education establishments in Île-de-France.
Since its creation in 1925, the Cité internationale universitaire de Paris places the promotion of the French-speaking world at the heart of its project. The cultural and intellectual manifestations that it organises and associates itself with give life to universal ideas and values of the French-speaking world. Notably it welcomed the Conférence internationale pour la langue française et le plurilinguisme dans le monde. The Cité internationale universitaire de Paris counts the following names among its famous former French-speaking residents: Léopold Sédar Senghor, Habib Bourguiba and Abdou Diouf.
The building is positioned so as to form a shield against the nuisance of the ring road and to provide the best possible orientation for the housing. The 300 rooms are exposed to the east, on the stadium side, and to the west, on the rue Hyacinthe Vincent side. The overall volume is slightly folded with a glass gap at the vertical circulations level. The facades are designed from a prefabricated module in light grey sandblasted concrete; this generates an alternating play between the full and empty openings.